The Government has announced plans to sell a limited number of State houses to community housing providers to take on vulnerable tenants.

National's whole "selling state houses to charity" policy was always just shuffling the deckchairs in an effort to be seen to be doing something while really doing nothing, but this is even worse. At least with an NZ charity there'd be a commitment to helping New Zealanders, and any profits would be directed to that purpose. Selling to foreigners removes all that.

But then, the policy was never intended to actually solve anything. It was always selling for the sake of selling, to run down the state housing stock as part of National's gradual exit from fulfilling this core government obligation. And when this fails, they'll probably suggest something even crazier, like burning state houses down for the insurance or something.